From New York…I’m Colin Marston.
Young undocumented immigrants known as Dreamers are in limbo today after the Senate failed to move forward legislation on immigration reform.
At the end of the week, 4 separate measures failed, including the president’s proposal and one from the Common Sense Coalition, a centrist group of law-makers. The Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had promised a full week of open debate on immigration after the February 7th spending bill was passed to keep the government open.
President Trump ended an Obama-era executive order called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival or DACA in September which shields Dreamers from deportation. The directive will expire on March 5th.
The FBI admits it mishandled several tips on the perpetrator of Wednesday’s high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The bureau received a 2nd warning on January 5th about Nikolas Cruz but never responded. Cruz opened fire on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, killing 17 people with a semiautomatic rifle. The attack comes in the context of increasing mass shootings across the US, already the country with the world’s highest number.
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s office has indicted 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian organizations for interference in the 2016 US election. Mueller has already brought charges against several Trump campaign officials, but these are the first criminal charges against Russian nationals. The indictment targets the Internet Research Agency, a hacking group funded by the Russian government.
Six journalists were sentenced to life in prison in Turkey after being accused of abetting the 2016 coup attempt against President Recep (Re-jept) Erdogan and of supporting US-based Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen. Ahmet Altan and Mehmet Altan were charged with giving “subliminal messages” during a TV show appearance a day before the coup. The charges are the latest example of Erdogan’s increasingly autocratic regime where since the July 2016 coup, 50,000 people have been detained and over 150,000 public servants, teachers, and journalists fired.
Cyril Ramaphosa, the new president of South Africa, delivered his first major speech today on the need for political and economic stability in the country.
Ramaphosa: We have been given the responsibility as South Africans to build a new nation, to confront the injustices of the past and the inequalities of the present.
Ramaphosa was elected by the South African National Assembly on Thursday after former President Jacob Zuma was forced to resign in the wake of corruption allegations. Ramaphosa and Zuma are both members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party, the party founded by Nelson Mandela in 1994. It’s currently 56 degrees and lightly raining in Manhattan.
For Columbia Radio News, I’m Colin Marston.